A fulfillment center is a materials handling facility that is equipped to store inventory and fulfill orders from the inventory. A variety of tasks may be performed in the fulfillment center including, for example, receiving shipments of new inventory, storing new inventory in storage locations, picking items from the inventory storage locations in response to receiving orders, grouping the picked items, packing the items, and readying the packed items for shipment.
Some fulfillment centers include a conveyor for moving items from one location to another, as well as for sorting the items by moving the items to various destination locations. These conveyors typically move an item along a first directional axis until the item reaches a destination location. Thereafter, a diverting mechanism moves the item laterally to the destination location by moving the item along a second directional axis. However, these conveyor systems use a large amount of space and optimizing conveyor systems remains problematic.